Propaganda

Why it changed and does it work?

Georgiy Syunyaev

Department of Political Science, Vanderbilt University

October 25, 2023

Introduction


  • Paths to propaganda

    • Geography: 🇷🇺 \(\Rightarrow\) 🇺🇸 \(\Rightarrow\) 🇩🇪 \(\Rightarrow\) 🇺🇸
    • Disciplines: Math in School \(\Rightarrow\) Econ (Under)Grad \(\Rightarrow\) PhD in Political Science \(\Rightarrow\) Post-Doc w/ focus on Stats \(\Rightarrow\) Asisstant Prof at Vandy

  • Puzzled by why so many people consume openly propaganda media

  • Studying whether (informational) propaganda is persuasive in Russia and some other countries (?)

    • Does blame-shifting work?
    • How do citizens perceive media bias?
    • Can we change perceptions of media bias and what are the downstream effects?

Plan for today




  1. Propaganda yesterday and today (discuss Guriev and Treisman)
  1. Effects of propaganda (tour of evidence)

What is propaganda?


  • Initially studied in 1930s/40s, but with demise of propaganda departments became less popular in social sciences… Still very popular in journalism

  • Many definitions and (too) many arguments about them…

    • Wiki: Communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda
    • Alternative: Any government’s attempt at changing information available to citizens to achieve their goals
    • Institutions and intensity are important
  • Is censorship part of propaganda?

Types of propaganda

  • Hard vs soft

    • News vs entertainment
    • CCTV vs Blockbuster movies in China

  • Framing/priming vs censorship

    • Informational strategy vs repression
    • War is necessary vs Banning of independent media in Russia

Propaganda yesterday and today

Informational autocrats

  • Guriev and Treisman. 2019. “Informational Autocrats” \(\Rightarrow\) 2022. “Spin Dictators”

  • Summary:

    • The model of dictatorship that dominated in the twentieth century was based on fear and ideology
    • In recent years, a less bloody and ideological form of authoritarianism has been spreading
    • Shift from ideological (hard) propaganda to more informational propaganda
    • Propaganda is used not only to persuade citizens but to signal to elites
    • Answer strategy: Provide descriptive and anecdotal evidence over time

Evidence: Decrease in violence


  • Do you find this persuasive?

  • What are underlying assumptions?

(Not much of an) Evidence: Violence concealed



  • Examples of calls for open violence: Muammar Gadaffi of Lybia, Francisco Franco of Spain, Mao Zedong of China, Benito Mussolini of Italy…
  • Not so much violence today. Why?
  • How do autocrats conceal the violence?

Evidence: End of ideology

  • Less clear ideology today

  • Is this what evidence suggests?

Evidence: Mimicking democracy

Evidence: Changing rhetoric to performance


  • More focus on public policy and performance in leader speeches

Elites vs masses



  • Key explanation for shift to informational autocracy:

    • Informed elites are harder to persuade and more likely to resist repression \(\Rightarrow\) Autocrats try to mimic democracy and become more persuasuve to masses \(\Rightarrow\) Informational autocrats

  • Key factors: Size of elites and ability to control media

  • Evidence: More educated are more aware of press freedom and more critical of government

    • Very rough test…

Discussion



  • Do you find the theory persuasive?

  • Is ideology really gone?

  • What if the pressures from elites become too strong? Are we expecting transition to democracy?

  • How sustainable is informational autocracy? Is it a transitory state?

Effects of propaganda

Propaganda effects


  • We discussed different propaganda strategies used by autocrats over time…
  • But do they actually work?

  • Theories: Propaganda persuades masses (Mattingly and Yao 2022) vs sends signal to the elites (Huang 2015)

  • Expectation: Propaganda changes the audiences’ beliefs and attitudes in the expected direction

    • In addition it should be particularly strong if the communication channel is monopolized by the state
    • In addition the effects could dissepate over time and can be blocked by real life experiences

  • Heavily empirical literature: Mix of survey, field and quasi experiments

Evidence

  • 1930s: Radio Propagation in Weimar Germany and its Effects on Voting for Nazi Party Adena, Enikolopov, and Petrova (2015)

  • 1936-42: Father Coughlin’s Effects on FDR Votes and Sales of US War Bonds Wang (2021)

  • 1943-45: Italians’ Exposure to BBC Radio and Resistance to Nazi Occupation during WWII Gagliarducci et al. (2020)

  • 1994: Exposure to Hutu Nationalist Radio and Participation in Rwandan Genocide Yanagizawa-Drott (2014)

  • 1999: Exposure to Independent TV and Voting in Russia in 1999 Enikolopov, Petrova, and Zhuravskaya (2011)

  • 2012: Random Radio Distribution and Exposure to Radio during the Mali Coup Bleck and Michelitch (2017)

  • 2014: Exposure to Russian TV and Ukrainian Elections in 2014 Peisakhin and Rozenas (2018)

  • 2018: Expansion of Transmission of Independent Radio Station in Tanzania Green et al. (2023)

Precincts within radius of Nazi controlled radio broadcasts were more likely to vote for Hitler, join the Nazi Party and engage in anti-Jewish deportations prior to 1942

Leveraging regional variation in topography identifies negative effects on FDR votes even after going away from public

Uses sunspot activity to approximate variation in BBC radio reception. Important role in motivating resistance but no long-lasting anti-Nazi effects

Topographic variation in exposure to RTLM responsible for roughly 10% of killings, especially from violence requiring coordination

Regions with independent NTV Channel had 8.9 pp less votes for government party, but the effects diminish after takeover by the government

Radio exposure boosted national identity but did not elevate explicit support for the junta

Boost in support for pro-Russian parties but no effect on turnout

Effects on political interest and knowledge about domestic politics. Attitude change on a range of gender issues was sporadic

Micro-evidence and conclusion


  • Most survey experimental work (too much to cover here) suggests that there are effects but they are

    • Highly heterogeneous across groups
    • Do not affect core political beliefs
    • Quickly dissipates over time

  • So is propaganda effective?

    • Yes, but probably only at high doses and in contolled media environments
    • Overall this can create a problem for propaganda where they have to maintain popularity at all costs
    • Could be another explanation for the rise of informational autocrats

References

Adena, M, R Enikolopov, and M Petrova. 2015. “Radio and the Rise of the Nazis in Prewar Germany.” …Quarterly Journal of …. https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/130/4/1885/1916582.
Bleck, Jaimie, and Kristin Michelitch. 2017. “Capturing the Airwaves, Capturing the Nation? A Field Experiment on State-Run Media Effects in the Wake of a Coup.” The Journal of Politics 79 (3): 873–89. https://doi.org/10.1086/690616.
Enikolopov, Ruben, Maria Petrova, and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya. 2011. “Media and Political Persuasion: Evidence from Russia.” American Economic Review 101 (7): 32533285. https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.101.7.3253.
Gagliarducci, Stefano, Massimiliano Gaetano Onorato, Francesco Sobbrio, and Guido Tabellini. 2020. “War of the Waves: Radio and Resistance During World War II.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 12 (4): 1–38. https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20190410.
Green, Donald P., Dylan W. Groves, Constantine Manda, Beatrice Montano, and Bardia Rahmani. 2023. “The Effects of Independent Local Radio on Tanzanian Public Opinion: Evidence from a Planned Natural Experiment.” The Journal of Politics, October, 000–000. https://doi.org/10.1086/726964.
Huang, Haifeng. 2015. “Propaganda as Signaling.” Comparative Politics 47 (4): 419–37.
Mattingly, Daniel C., and Elaine Yao. 2022. “How Soft Propaganda Persuades.” Comparative Political Studies 55 (9): 1569–94. https://doi.org/10.1177/00104140211047403.
Peisakhin, Leonid, and Arturas Rozenas. 2018. “Electoral Effects of Biased Media: Russian Television in Ukraine.” American Journal of Political Science 62 (3): 535550.
Wang, Tianyi. 2021. “Media, Pulpit, and Populist Persuasion: Evidence from Father Coughlin.” American Economic Review 111 (9): 30643092. https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20200513.
Yanagizawa-Drott, D. 2014. “Propaganda and Conflict: Evidence from the Rwandan Genocide.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics. https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/129/4/1947/1853091.